Touchpad on E1-510 on Windows 10 erratic

neshill

The touchpad on my Acer E1-510 is behaving oddly on Windows 10.
Symptoms

When I install ELAN's supposedly current drivers, the touchpad will only track and scroll, but no tapping/clicking actions work. Upon windows boot, it looks as if a dragging action is stuck.
When I install ELAN's Windows 8 drivers (2013), I don't get the control panel access for ELAN, but the trackpad works. Same things happen when I uninstall driver. Trackpad's scrolling and right click actions don't work, however in this case.

What I tried:

Reinstalled Windows 10, installed all drivers from Acer's support page (even though they don't have official Win 10 drivers it appears)
FN+F7
Tried each driver version for ELAN's touchpad I could find.
No options for touchpad in BIOS

Accepted answers

JackE

If it was mine to donate, I wouldn't touch a BIOS update since the touchpad issue is more of an annoyance than a serious or disabling issue. I'd get an inexpensive tethered USB mouse. Or go back to a generic Win8.1 at this link http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery since your mainboard already has the OEM license embedded on it. Jack E/NJ

JackE

neshill >>>kids who need to attend online classes but don't have access>>>

Thank you for your kind words and for donating this laptop for a much-needed use other than online games.

Jack E/NJ

All comments

JackE

Install the 2013 trackpad drivers in Win10's Win8x compatibility mode. Right click on the setup.exe file. Chose properties. Click compatiblity tab to install in Win8x compatiblity mode. If that fails, download and install iobit's DriverBooster freeware to see if it'll be up a better driver. Jack E/NJ

neshill

Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately that did not seem to help. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling both the "Current" and the old driver in compatibility mode, and it didn't really help. At best, I get the old result of the trackpad being seemingly on some default drivers and only the tracking+primary click working (no two finger actions, or scrolling). At worst, I get the same issue as before, where I can't click at all.

If it helps, when the second case happens with the current drivers, I can edit the trackpad settings and key mappings, disabling clicks or taps achieves nothing, but when I click on the menu item, this is what I see permanently:

It appears as if the right click button is permanently pressed?

JackE

F2 into the BIOS menu on startup. If touchpad options are present in the MAIN tab, how does it behave in basic mode? Jack E/NJ

neshill

I unfortunately don't have the touchpad options in BIOS

neshill

(I appreciate your help with this, btw)

Here’s the bios info:

JackE

Did you press Ctrl+S in the BIOS Main tab to see if any hidden options pop up? Have you tried DriverBooster yet? Jack E/NJ

neshill

CTRL+S in BIOS seemingly does nothing. I tried DriverBooster, it's not freeware anymore unfortunately (limited to 2 drivers), and the initial run did not yield any results, only after I applied the initial scan did it find "newer" drivers for the trackpad. I tracked the version down and downloaded them, installed them and they also didn't help. It's quite weird, most current drivers exhibit the same issue - it appears the right button is constantly registered as active. I thought this may be a hardrware issue, but it's not apparent it is the case - no dust, blew out the compartment, sensor seems to work, and when one uninstalls the driver the trackpad seemingly works in other ways so it doesn't seem to be a hardware issue.

I am completely baffled

JackE

Has this touchpad ever worked properly with Win10? Jack E/NJ

neshill

I don't think it has, really. I've only used it under Win 8.1, and when my I updated it later, I used a mouse so I never noticed whether it worked. The issue is I cannot revert to Windows 8 because it does not exist anymore, and my key is not valid for Windows 8.1 apparently.

JackE

Was it factory Win8 or Win8.1? If it was indeed Win8.1, there's a slim chance the the ALT+F10 cold boot recovery method may restore it. Unfortunately, it's probably a compatibility issue with Win10 that may or may not get fixed with a future Win10 update. I hesitate to mention this but there are updated BIOS firmware available for this laptop from ACER ( https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/5149?b=1 ) that may resolve the issue but it's risky due to the possibility of bricking the laptop if it fails. And there's no guarantee an update will make the touchpad act any differently than it does now. Jack E/NJ

neshill

It was Win 8 I think (it was a long time ago), at least the sticker on the laptop says 8. I did try ALT+F10 earlier to do boot recovery and it did not work. The boot partitions still exist, but the actual shortcut does not seem to work. I appreciate the BIOS update suggestion, but I could not find any of them which would seem to address issues I am experiencing. The brightness one, it appears, is something I might be affected by, but the Acer documentation regarding what else happens with that bios change is non-existant so I've been hesitant to do anything about it. If you can recommend any bios update you might consider worth it please let me know.

Your help is very much appreciated. I'm setting this laptop up as one of the laptop donations to kids who need to attend online classes but don't have access to a laptop, so having the touchpad work would be great. I'll supply a mouse as an alternative, but I like to donate self-sufficient hardware if possible.

JackE

If it was mine to donate, I wouldn't touch a BIOS update since the touchpad issue is more of an annoyance than a serious or disabling issue. I'd get an inexpensive tethered USB mouse. Or go back to a generic Win8.1 at this link http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery since your mainboard already has the OEM license embedded on it. Jack E/NJ

neshill

I tend to agree. It's unfortunate this is happening, but what you're suggesting is what's most prudent here. Thank you for your time and help. I really appreciate it. Stay safe and healthy.